The Free Market 26, no. 3 (March 2005) I didn’t think anyone would dare to apply Bastiat’s Broken Window fallacy to the human tragedy that played itself out along the rim of the Indian Ocean, but sadly, faith in economic fallacies is even more common than deadly tsunamis. Many economists mistakenly believe taxation can be good for economic
The Free Market 26, no. 9 (September 2005) T hose of us who appreciate liberty, voluntary exchange, and workers’ property rights to their own labor have long objected to the American organized labor movement. Since the 1930s , this movement has been defined by the AFL-CIO. This “mother of all unions” is the biggest, with a membership of just
The original theory behind state-supported television was that it would give voice to those excluded from the marketplace. After all, commercial television’s interests are not necessarily in line with the national interest. What about the millions of the poor, benighted Americans who don’t fit into the few demographic targets that commercial
Mises Institute adjunct scholar Richard Vedder was interviewed this morning on NPR’s Morning Edition about his new book, Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much . Listen here . Sounds like a great book. From the interview: [College costs increase] because growing government financial aid, especially student loans, has made students
The ‘05 federal budget deficit is set to break last year’s record, reports the Washington Post . “In separate briefings, administration officials detailed the rising cost of war while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its deficit forecast for the coming decade. Taken together, the briefings painted a sobering picture of the
I reeceived the following e-mail raising questions about my recent Mises.org critique of “forced savings” as a solution to the mess that is Social Security. My response follows. Professor Westley, I’m writing in regard to your article entitled “Robbing Peter to Pay Peter” at Mises.org. Let me start by saying that I fully agree with you that the
On the same day that the president says in his State of the Union speech: America’s prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government. I welcome the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending discipline. ...one of the big news stories is the announcement that Viagra would be covered by Medicare--to a tune of a half a trillion
Oh so rarely, the New York Times ‘ editorial page make good economic sense, and its position opposing the Bush Administration’s Social Security privatization plans is one of those times. Sure, its motives reflect devotion to winning a partisan battle than to sound economics. Indeed, it would rather have Social Security strengthened and expanded.
“Right now, the economy in Nigeria is such that 25 cows is considered having a lot,” says Chicago Bears defensive end Adewale Ogunleye , who is first in line to succeed his uncle as king of the Nigerian city of Emure. “Well, 25 cows doesn’t do anything for me, so I think I’ll be in Chicago for a
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.